Pilot Sex
by ScullyGolightly
Summary: Versions of Mulder and Scully fucking in the pilot episode. Each chapter is an unconnected, different version
1. Mile High Club

She gripped the armrests and squeezed her eyes shut. She hated flying, and now she had a job where it would be a regular thing. When she opened her eyes again, her new partner's shit-eating grin was in her view.

"This must be the place," he joked.

If he wanted to further her feeling of being totally out of her element, he was doing a good job. When she was given this assignment, Scully was filled with self-doubt, but she was one to never pass up a challenge. Usually, she thrived on them.

Their first meeting had gone well—better than she had expected and better than she had hoped. Scully knew Mulder wasn't thrilled to have a partner and thought of her as a babysitter set in place by the higher-ups. She was going to have to work her ass off to prove him wrong. He had immediately baited her, throwing her ridiculous questions laced with provocation intended to innerve her with a taunting—and what she thought maybe she had imagined—a flirtatious undertone.

She was pleased with how she had handled it. It appeared to catch him off guard somewhat, and that may have incited a bit of overconfidence on her part, which was promptly put in check when she had spent the rest of her evening reading about him. Mulder's track record as a profiler was unmatched. From what she could tell from the case files she was able to get her hands on, he had a brilliant mind. What was he doing burying himself down in the basement? It seemed to be a waste of his talents.

Nerves had settled into her bones, and she was self-conscious, once again, as soon as they had met at the airport. Now on top of all that, he was witnessing her freak out over a bit of turbulence. She felt nauseated.

Scully took her glasses off and got up, heading towards the rear bathroom. Just as she stepped inside, she felt a hand on hers.

"You okay?"

Scully started, Mulder's unexpected presence surprising her. "Uh, yeah."

The plane lurched again and sent the two of them into the tiny lavatory. They were pressed together, his lanky figure loomed over her, his hot breath against her temple. Scully swallowed, a different set of nerves building in her chest. She noticed her hands were on him, one on his chest and the other gripped his waist. Something of his was on her, too, but it wasn't his hands. It was his unmistakable erection crushed between them, poking her belly. She was scared to look at him, but she had to.

Mulder had an expression of mixed emotion on his face. He smiled sheepishly at their acknowledgment of his hard-on, but fear flashed in his eyes that were darkened with obvious lust.

_He's having the same feelings as me,_ Scully thought, stunned, as she looked at her own passion and uncertainty mirrored on his face, reflecting back to her.

"Erm, I- I think I've seen one too many adult films with this scenario. I'm sorry," he said, making no move to break the contact or lessen the seductive air collecting around them.

Scully shook her head slightly. Neither of them knew what she meant by it. Their looks held, charged and electric.

They moved in unison—their lips gravitating towards one another as if from a magnetic pull. As they connected, Mulder brought his hands to Scully's face, stroking her cheeks and deepening the kiss. Their tongues volleyed back and forth much like their words had during their first meeting—his teased and hers didn't retreat.

Scully, beside herself with desire, pushed her hips into him, and Mulder responded by grinding his pelvis against her. A moan escaped their entangled lips. It was a sound that combined both of their wanton sighs.

Mulder moved his hands from her face to her breasts. Scully cursed the bulky fabric of her blazer, wishing she could feel his touch on her bare skin. She arched her back to urge on his caress.

"Yesss, Fox," she breathed out, impulsively.

"Mulder. Call me Mulder," he grunted against her cheek. "Please, Scully, say it."

"Oh Mulderrr," she complied as they dry humped each other in a cramped airplane bathroom.

"Ah, Scully, yes."

Scully reached down to his crotch and palmed his dick through his slacks. His hips jerked. "Are you in the mile high club, Agent Scully?" he whispered in her ear.

"No, you?" she asked, giving his cock a squeeze.

"Why don't we join?" he said, adding with a smirk, "So to speak."

He spun her around so she was facing the sink. They made eye contact in the mirror. "I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of things I've never done before with you," she said, and his face lit up.

Scully unbuttoned her pants and shimmied them down along with her panties. Mulder fished for his wallet in his pocket. "I think I have our club membership fee in here," he said, pulling out a condom. Scully stifled a laugh and locked the restroom door.

His trousers fell to his ankles, and he bent his knees so he could align himself appropriately with her petite frame. Scully rose up on her tiptoes to help matters, and he entered her in one swift upward thrust. She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped the edge of the counter, bracing herself for the intense sensations that followed as he began his rhythmic pounding.

He reached around and shoved his hand inside her suit jacket to grab her breast over her blouse. His other hand went to he neck, but ended up cupping her jaw. She opened her mouth and he hooked his thumb inside. Her hot tongue toyed with him.

She opened her eyes and almost came from the sight of what reflected back to her from the mirror. Mulder had her in a bear hug, fondling her tit and possessively clutching her face. The shallow movements that rocked her up and down entranced her. She couldn't believe she was doing this. She wanted to prove herself as a serious FBI agent, and here she was fucking her new partner 35,000 feet in the air. Her building climax pushed these thoughts from her mind as he bit her earlobe and squeezed their bodies tighter together.

Scully came, her face twisting in ecstasy. Mulder paused, watching her in the mirror. When he felt the last of her fluttering around his shaft, he sped up his efforts, chasing his own release. He put his mouth to her neck to keep from making noise when he came, and stayed clamped to her backside for the few breathless moments after.

He looked up at her just as the reality hit her and the shame started to engulf her. Mulder saw it and smiled, wanting to stop her from feeling what he was sure she was feeling at this moment. "You are so beautiful when you come."

She blushed—the sweet comment overriding the reproach she was bringing upon herself. Mulder slid out of her and sat down on the toilet. He ripped off some tissue and gently wiped between Scully's legs. She bit back a smile, endeared by his gesture.

"You go first, and I'll wait a couple minutes," he said, as he watched her pull her pants and underwear back up. She looked at herself in the mirror, adjusted her blazer and smoothed her hair.

Mulder grabbed her hand before she could unlock the door, and pulled her down for a kiss. "Well, our first case together is certainly starting with a bang, isn't it?" he said, grinning. It was different from the shit-eating grin from before. This was one that met her on an equal playing field, so she returned the smile, now feeling completely at ease.

As Scully sat back down and fastened her seatbelt, turbulence rocked the plane again. Scully relaxed into the seat, her fear of flying having been fucked away by her helpful partner.


	2. Running

Mulder bounced on the balls of his feet at the doorstep of her motel room. "I'm way too wired. I'm going for a run. You want to come?"

His baseball cap was on backward, and he had a cute, yet somewhat mischievous, boyish look on his face.

"Yeah, sure. Lemme change," Scully said, holding the door open so he could wait in her room.

Scully rummaged through her suitcase for her sports bra and tank and went into the bathroom. Mulder studied the X-ray taped to her nightstand lamp.

"You figure out what that little thing up Ray Soames' nose is yet?" he called out.

"No, and I'm not losing any sleep over it." She came out of the bathroom and sat on the chair to tie up her tennis shoes.

Mulder nodded to the computer and the paperwork strewn all over her bed. "Looks like ya might be."

She simply shrugged. "Ready?"

They ran from the motel to a main road. Scully wasn't sure if he had a destination in mind but didn't ask. She was able to keep up with him and his long stride, but worried that if he wanted to go for a long run, she was exerting too much to maintain this pace. The sound of his even-measured breaths made her regret agreeing to the jog a little bit. She just hoped she didn't make a fool of herself.

"I feel it, Scully."

"Hm?" She wanted to keep her talking to a minimum to preserve her energy.

"What's happening here. I feel like it's the pivotal case—the one that will get the bureau to take the X-Files seriously."

She watched him. The intensity of his thoughts and his passion for his work was etched onto his face. He intrigued her. In just a few short days, the things she'd gleaned from his personality had shown her more about him than the dozens of case files she had read in an attempt to get to know him. Her eyes held on his mouth where cloudy breaths expelled from his lips. She didn't see the large tree branch on the road in front of her. Scully tripped and stumbled, but caught herself before falling.

"Whoa. You okay?" he asked, helping her to steady by holding her arm.

"Yeah, yeah, fine," she assured him. Hopefully, he would think her red cheeks were from the brisk air and not the mortification she was feeling.

He began to jog again, and she followed, grateful that he didn't make too much of a fuss over her clumsiness or the fact that she had been distracted by his pouty lips. _Get it together, Dana,_ she scolded herself.

They turned down a suburban street and then another. He had stopped talking. The only sounds were their breathing and rhythmic footfalls. Scully let her anxiety go. Mulder had a way of making her strive to impress him, but, at the same time, putting her at ease. She would find a balance, she was sure.

At the end of the street sat the small town's high school. Mulder motioned with a jerk of his head for her to follow him onto the campus. The ran past the main structure, and then down a path between portable buildings, ending up at the gymnasium. Mulder continued around it to where the football field lay darkened, lit only by the bright glow of the moon.

He slowed to a stop on the gravelly track that encircled the field.

"Wanna race?"

Scully eyed him. He was all but wagging his eyebrows at her. "Pass," she said. She may be becoming more relaxed around him, but a competitive challenge like this, even though it was friendly in nature, was not something for which her nerves were prepared.

"C'mon Scully. Let's blow off some steam."

"All right," she acquiesced, sighing. It caught her off guard how quickly she gave in. His powers of persuasion must be another one of his finely-honed skills.

He dug his toe into the track and dragged a line across its width. They stood side by side and bent down into a runner's crouch.

"On your mark, get set, go!" Mulder called out.

They both took off. Mulder had a lead on her instantly, and she let him have it. She was planning on a hard sprint at the last straight away.

"Get those little legs moving, Scully!" he yelled back to her, brashly.

He glanced back at her on the second turn, hoping she was taking his harmless teasing for what it was. She had a coy smile on her face. He chuckled, and it disturbed his steady breathing pattern.

When they hit the home stretch, Mulder saw a coppery glint in his periphery. Scully was picking up speed—a lot of speed. He tried to quicken his pace, but his cockiness had tripped up his focus, and he watched her cross his homemade finish line.

When he reached her seconds later, the sound of her cackling filled his ears. He may have been the loser of the race, but hearing that made him feel like a winner.

"Suck it, Mulder," taunted Scully. Then her self-satisfied grin twisted into a grimace. "Ow!" She bent down and gripped her thigh.

Mulder went to her immediately. "What? What is it?"

"Cramp. Leg cramp," Scully said through gritted teeth.

"Here. Come sit down." He looped his arm under hers and helped her to the bleachers. Mulder knelt down in front of her, pried her fingers from her leg, and began to massage the tight muscle. The tenderness with which he was touching her and his proximity made her shallow breaths come to a halt. She could smell the sweat on him, and it made her stomach fill with heat.

He continued to knead her upper thigh until the muscle finally relaxed. Scully stared at him with a mixture of awe and lust. Logically, she knew the pain would have subsided eventually, but right now it was Mulder that had made it go away. The way he deftly maneuvered his fingers, and how close he was to her center, was ...erotic.

The moan slipped past her lips before she could stop it. He looked up at her, thinking that the cramp had eased and it was a sigh of relief, but the look on her face exuded something else—something heated, carnal even.

"Good?" he asked, returning her desirous gaze. She bit her lip and nodded. "Want me to stop?" said Mulder, hoping the answer was no. She shook her head, lip still caught sensuously in her teeth.

Mulder moved his hands to caress her thighs. Scully, who was reclined on her elbows, let her head fall back. His thumbs came deliciously close to the spot between her legs. He pushed against them, opening her up to him. The pads of his fingers danced along her inner thighs and up to her stomach. He lifted her tank top up and leaned in to kiss her belly.

He had settled between her legs, his chest pressed against her mons. His tongue snuck out to taste the salt of her skin, and she moaned again. His hand went up further and cupped her breasts, squeezing and stroking; he felt her hips grind against him.

He rose up on his feet and hovered over her. She lifted her head up and into a perfectly timed kiss. Scully opened her mouth to his eager tongue. They kissed passionately, pushing and pulling, teasing tongues and wet lips. Mulder let his pelvis rest on hers so she could feel his erection. The action elicited another needy moan from her.

"I don't have a condom," he said, breathlessly into her mouth.

"It's okay. I'm on the pill," she answered. "Are you clean?" Scully asked, sensibly, while rubbing her clit against his hardness.

"Yeah," he breathed out. "In fact, it's been quite a while for me, since I, uh…" She had snaked her tongue into his ear, and he could no longer form words.

Scully began pushing his sweatpants down, exposing his ass to the frigid night air and her hot, little hands. He lifted off her so he could push them down further. She looked down between them and saw his cock freed from his clothing, and she felt her cunt dampen with arousal. He helped her peel down her spandex leggings and underwear. Her butt rested back down on the cold, metal bleachers; the seat above was digging into her back, but she barely noticed any of the discomfort as he slid his tip up and down her wet, swollen slit.

He entered her slowly, and then lowered his body closer to her. Their lips met again with the same sloppy fervor as before. The pleasure she felt from him inside her quickly dissipated any qualms that had been forming about fucking her partner on their first case. There was sure to be awkwardness following this, but she decided to deal with that when the time came—his throbbing dick pushing in and out of her was her only thought right now.

When he had mentioned that it had been quite a while, he was referring to sex with another person. In fact, he had shamefully masturbated to thoughts of his new partner the night after she had introduced herself in his office. He had been instantly attracted to her. She was unlike his usual fare of tall and busty brunettes. The red hair, her fresh-faced neophyte attitude, and her readiness to spar with him as he challenged her with questions that were designed to be unnerving, built into an attraction that he couldn't really explain, but one that was all too real, nonetheless. He still didn't trust her or Blevin's motives for sticking her on him, but her scientific logic and eagerness had started to promptly win him over despite his well-seasoned paranoia and distrust. Her inclination to sleep with him this early on in their partnership didn't really make him lean one way or the other on where her loyalties lied; it did, however, deepen his fondness and intrigue (not to mention, make his cock rock hard). The inability of his astute profiler mind to figure her out was surprising; that she was capable of keeping him on his toes impressed him. She was reciprocating his unexpected lust—on a set of high school bleachers. Not even his radically open mind could've anticipated this series of events.

Scully felt pricks of moisture in her eyes. The feeling of him inside her was more intense than she had anticipated. The situation was hot and frantic, and the want was mutual—and greedy. It had been a long time since she had had the sudden, irrepressible urge to fuck someone, right then and there. Him responding with an equal need bewildered her and electrified the moment.

He broke away from their wet kiss and nipped down along her jawline. His head dipped to her chest, damp and cool with sweat. He closed his mouth over her taut nipple, erect under layers of spandex. Scully gasped at the sensation, and arched her back, wanting more. After teasing one, and leaving a soaked circle on her tank top, he moved to the other, giving it the same treatment. It may have been a while since he had to bring a woman to pleasure, but that did nothing to hinder his obvious skill in that department.

The pumping of his hips and the attention he paid to her breasts was bringing her close to climax. The impropriety of the location and the danger of engaging this way in a public place all boosted her arousal. She never did things like this, as an adult, and certainly not when she was in high school. She was being naughty and so was he.

There was a tingling in her abdomen, and her head felt light. His teeth bit down around her nipple just as she came. He could feel the spasm of her around his length, and he quickened his pace. He had been close to orgasm but waited for her. Her coming gave him the permission he needed for release. Mulder emptied into her with a thrust and a grunt.

He rested his forehead, slick with perspiration, against hers. To Scully, this felt more intimate than the act of intercourse, and she found herself basking in the feeling. They stayed like that as they caught their breaths. Mulder's biceps started to burn with the strain of suspending himself above her for so long, so he pushed off and sat next to her, not bothering to pull up his pants.

She stole a glimpse at him—his face in profile, sated; the rise and fall of his chest; his semi-erect dick glistening with her fluids in the moonlight. Scared he would sense her gaze, she stood up and slid her underwear and pants back into place. Mulder watched her—half-wondering what he should say, and half-enjoying the fact that it felt there was no need for words between them. Scully felt this, too, so she sat back down and looked up into the night sky. Mulder scooted his pants back up by doing a little shimmy while still sitting, then he followed her lead and laid his head back. At that moment, a shooting star flashed across the darkness. Scully made a little noise of wonder and surprise. Mulder turned to her and kissed her, chastely, innocently on the cheek. She gave him a quizzical smile. He reclined back again and sought out her hand next to him.

They sat this way for some time—in silence, stargazing and holding hands, like a couple of in love teenagers, until they wordlessly got up and jogged back to the motel. He walked her to her door, gave her another wholesome peck on the lips, and said goodnight.


	3. Nine Minutes

Scully stood on a dark state road, drenched and cold, looking at her partner in disbelief. He was practically giddy from the unexplained car trouble, insisting that they had just lost nine minutes of time. The impossibility of his claim still stood firmly and resolutely in her mind, but his enthusiasm was infectious, and she could feel it permeate somewhere deep inside her like it was warding off the chill trying to settle into her bones. Not just the chill from the freezing rain, but the uneasy feeling of being out of her depth. Nothing on this case was making sense. She knew working on the X-Files would be challenging, but she hadn't expected to hit so many hurdles and so many that defied scientific explanation.

What they had uncovered in their investigation were just more questions. In the back of her mind, Scully doubted herself. How can she best apply her abilities and her knowledge to these fantastical findings? She feared that her role would become the "science" part of the science fiction department of the FBI, and she would probably end up a bigger joke within the Bureau than Spooky Mulder. These insecurities, though somewhat assuaged by her own determination and tenacity, were proving to be put to rest the more time she spent with Agent Mulder. His passion—which was borderline obsession—she was coming to find, was ultimately a search for the truth.

_I want the truth,_ she had told him, and he had given her his belief in what that truth was. Obviously, she didn't agree with him, but she respected him—even admired his steadfastness because it mirrored her own deep convictions in science. Even though she would bat down each insane theory he threw at her with sensible justifications, she couldn't help but entertain them to some degree. There was something logical about his illogicality, and this very much intrigued her.

"No, wait a minute. You're saying that, that time disappeared. Time can't just disappear. It's, it's, it's a universal invariant!" Scully hollered over the roar of the rain and the ridiculousness of his assertion.

He grinned at her—a grin that stirred within her something more than just the casual curiosity she had been harboring. "Not in this zip code," Mulder replied.

His response did not explain the missing time, nor did it explain why Scully lunged at Mulder, wrapping her arms around his neck, her wet lips finding his through the downpour. _Chalk it up to yet another unexplained phenomena,_ she thought.

His hands went to her waist instinctively, and he kissed her back; although he could not explain what was happening either. All he knew was that he no longer felt cold, and he no longer felt alone. She may oppose him on every theory he had, but she had never mocked him. And although it was still so early in their partnership, he sensed—no, he knew—that she never would. Harmless teasing sure, but he did that, too. In fact, he was enjoying that aspect—a little too much actually, if he allowed himself to think about it hard enough.

When she felt him respond to her, not just with his lips, but with his body, she opened her mouth, slipping her tongue inside his. His arms encircled her tighter as he reciprocated, invading the hot cavern of her mouth with his own tongue and heavy breaths. They kissed deeply and frantically at length, mapping out the insides of each other's mouths like there was evidence to be found there. Maybe there was; evidence of this undeniable connection, this spark that was quickly turning into a flame—no, a forest fire.

Scully pulled back, out of breath and with a wild, confused look on her face. "I don't know what-"

"I don't either," Mulder agreed feverishly, and hugged her back into an urgent embrace, pressing his lips against hers again. It had felt so good to connect with someone after such a long time of being misunderstood and dismissed outright. Scully took him seriously from the get-go, and that endeared her to him even if he had suspected she was a spy. She had steadily chipped away at those suspicions already, and he even considered trusting her. Bonding on a physical level, a lustful level, was an unexpected bonus; the possibility of which he had detected slightly, but refused to lend credence to in an effort to not get his hopes up.

Scully felt wetness gather in a place that was not from the rain. Her pussy throbbed with her desire. She felt feral—her sexual impulses were more intense than they had ever been. Never mind the ramifications of intimately consorting with a fellow agent on the job, she wanted Fox Mulder inside her. She wanted it as badly as she wanted to solve this case. Scully thrusted her pelvis into Mulder, and she felt his hardness there. More moisture gushed between her thighs.

Mulder grunted at the sudden contact against his straining erection. He ached for more; to feel her skin, the soft flesh of her breasts, the heat at her core.

"Mulder," she said desperately, almost whining. He heard it, clear as a bell, even though the deluge was loud and the rush of blood in his ears was thundering. He understood the need in her tone.

He tossed his head towards the car whose headlights were pointed right at them, illuminating their amorous earnestness. "Back seat," he yelled.

She nodded and they both ran over to the passenger side of the car, Mulder holding the door open for Scully. He scrambled in after her into a frenzy of removing soaking jackets and peeling off pants that were clinging wetly to their legs. Mulder pulled out a condom from his wallet. He leaned towards the window to try to read the expiration date with the aid of the moonlight, hoping he was within the time frame.

Scully, who was unbuttoning her shirt, stopped to watch him. She tried to stop her grin from widening too much, but the sight of him taking the time to check the date was too adorable. He turned to look at her, triumphant. "We're good."

Scully stifled a laugh. "Thank God," she said.

Mulder rolled the latex over his sensitive penis, groaning at his own touch and at the anticipation of soon being inside her. Scully was able to shed all her clothes save her basic satin bra. She climbed into his lap, and using her hand to guide him in, lowered herself onto his cock. They both gasped, and then Scully descended on his mouth, sucking hungrily at his lips as she began to ride him.

"Oooh, Scully," he moaned. "Feels so good. You're so tight."

Hearing him say something so erotic was quite the change from the crackpot conspiracies and dorky jokes, and it made her quicken her movements—the rush of desire buzzing through her body right to her core. She mewled in response, vocalizing her pleasure. Mulder reached between them and pulled down the cups of her bra, roughly playing with her nipples between his fingertips.

"Uuunhhh," she cried out. She could feel her orgasm building, and she could tell it would be intense. He was doing everything right. The way he pushed his hips up into her at just the right pace, his hands on her breasts, what he said and the sensual sounds that rushed past his lips. "Fuck," she breathed out, amazed by how good he was making her feel.

He felt she was close so he abandoned her tits to grip her ass cheeks for leverage as he thrust up into her harder and faster. He nuzzled under her chin, darting his tongue out to taste the salty skin at her throat. She tilted her head down so she could capture his soft lips again. Scully wanted her mouth on his when she came; she wanted to fill him with her tongue and exhales of ecstasy just as he filled her with his hot, hard cock.

Her walls spasmed around his length, and her invasion of his mouth in addition to that gripping flutter made him come, too. He grunted her surname against her mouth; it dissolved like sugar on her lips.

They stayed that way, passing heavy breaths between them; Scully slowly grinding against him to prolong the pleasurable feeling as his dick began to soften inside her. Mulder finally leaned back against the seat. He looked at Scully. Her face was flushed, lips parted sensuously, and her eyes that gazed back at him with a contradictory mix of sated sleepiness and stunned elation. Her bra was still wedged under her boobs, her rosy nipples still perked. A drop of water from her ponytail fell on his thigh, cool against his warm skin.

Mulder brought his wrist up to look at his watch. "Made up for those nine minutes," he joked.

"And then some," Scully added.


	4. Mosquito Bites

As she stepped into his room and hesitated before slipping the robe off her shoulders, her mind teased her. It may have been a semi-unconscious decision to have thrown the robe on instead of a t-shirt and bottoms, but it was still a choice she had made. It wouldn't have taken much longer to put on a more appropriate covering. She could tell herself it was the panic of feeling the bumps on her back and what it could mean, but she knew a part of her liked the suggestiveness of the robe.

And even in that brief hesitation, she was aware that the quickening of her heartbeat was not just from her distress. It was the dark motel room. It was the candlelight. It was him.

Scully looked back at Mulder and gestured to her lower back. It was silent communication, and this thrilled him. Mulder had noticed moments—small moments, but they were there—where they had had unspoken exchanges. Each time it happened, it sparked something inside him, and a little bit of his wary guardedness fell away.

He slowly knelt down, letting the light from the candle dance across her pale skin. There had been urgency in her voice, panic in her eyes, but he felt compelled to take his time, wanting this—whatever this was—to be prolonged. If they could lose nine minutes then surely time could slow for them as well.

There were three raised red bumps on her lower back, and he felt a pang of alarm in his chest. Mulder reached out, his fingertips hovering, and then he lightly touched her just above the waistband of her underwear. These simple cotton briefs that were somehow sexier than anything made of silk or lace.

He chastised himself for this line of thinking and moved the candle closer to better inspect the marks. They looked just like the ones he had on his arms—mosquito bites. He didn't say this right away.

"What are they?"

He acted like he was still trying to figure it out, his fingers on her warm skin.

"Mulder, what are they?" she asked again.

He smiled. "Mosquito bites," Mulder said finally.

He was happy to put her fears to rest, and a little amused at the whole situation. Scully was a medical doctor. The fact that she had come to him for this put two thoughts in his mind. One, this case had gotten to her; her skeptical defenses letting his "fantastic" theories slip through. And two, if she had given herself a little bit of time she most likely would've come to the same conclusion he had on her own. But, her first instinct was to come to him, and Mulder was enamoured by this.

She felt the hot puff of breath from his mouth on her back and she heard the smile in his voice. Looking down over her shoulder she saw his wide grin.

"Are you sure?"

Mulder stood. He could not wipe the smile off his face. Scully brought her robe back up to cover herself. She was thinking about that smile. Relief washed over her just as warmth flooded her belly, and she knew as she turned and hugged him that the two feelings were unrelated.

Mulder was taken aback, almost literally, when the full weight of her petite frame pitched into him. It even took his brain a few seconds to register that he was involved in such an embrace. He couldn't remember the last time he had hugged somebody or been on the receiving end of one. As foreign as it may be, he found comfort in it. He never had enjoyed closeness like this before, even in intimate situations. Mulder noticed, though, with Scully he stood nearer to her, spoke to her closely, always leaning in a little more than necessary. It was like he was drawn into her orbit.

Scully straightened up, parting their bodies slightly. Her gaze settled at a spot on his chest. She could feel him looking at her, probably wondering about her irrational behavior, but she was afraid to look up. He watched her lips part; her face glowing from the candlelight, the downcast eyelashes, the flushed cheeks dotted with freckles.

He cupped the back of her neck. She heard his breathing. Once she met his eyes something would happen. Finally she lifted her chin, her head going back slightly as if she was drunk from the anticipation.

Wasn't she, though?

The relaxed look on his face was belied by an excited crease in his forehead. His eyes. Those lips. The way his hair flopped over his forehead. At that moment, Scully swooned. And Scully doesn't swoon. In fact, she prided herself on being unswoonable. What she didn't know was that Mulder was lightheaded about it all, too. He felt weak in the knees and was grateful he had her to hold onto.

At Mulder's slight lean towards her, Scully raised up on her toes so their lips could meet. And they did, tentatively at first—soft, gentle. They opened their mouths to each other at the same time, passing hot breaths between them. Mulder slipped his tongue past her lips. A moan from her escaped their liplock.

He kept kissing her as she shed her robe for the second time, now letting it slip all the way to the floor. Mulder hugged her closer, tighter, still holding the candle in his right hand, being careful not to light them on fire, to have the figurative flames ignited inside them become external and literal. Scully's arms went around his neck. They kissed, wet and frenzied, until they had to part in order to breathe.

"Scully," Mulder whispered softly.

Scully just looked back at him, eyes big. She bit her lip, and then reached around behind her back to unclasp her bra. It fell to the floor. Mulder held the candle to her body once again. The warm light flickering, animating the dark shadows at her curves, the tips of her taut nipples.

He finally set the candle aside, wanting both hands on her, wanting everything on her. He cupped her cheeks with his hands and kissed her again on the lips, then trailed down her jaw. Scully's hands went to his arms to steady herself. Mulder bowed down and took her breast in his mouth, lightly sucking. He swirled his tongue around the areola and then moved to the other to do the same, Scully now cradling his head with her hand, fingers entwined in his hair.

She closed her eyes as the pleasure overcame her, her head tilted back. There was wetness between her thighs. He softly bit her nipple and she whimpered. Mulder started to kiss his way back up her chest and her hands went to the flaps of his long sleeve shirt. He was wearing too many damn clothes.

Mulder got the hint and took it off, then his t-shirt went up over his head. Scully put her hands on his bare chest and ran them down his firm torso. They were both still moving slowly. Her hands went to his belt, but he stopped her. He knelt down, his face level with her sex.

The sight of him on his knees, probably able to smell her arousal, made her lose her breath. She didn't breathe again until he had peeled down her panties and put his mouth on her; then she gasped. It hissed loudly in the silent room.

He ate her out, hands gripping the flesh of her ass; Scully amazed that her legs kept her upright. It surprised her somewhat that he was a generous lover; he seemed so one-track minded. Boy, was she glad to discover this. He was really good—so good, in fact, that she came rather quickly.

His grin was back, she saw, when he stood up and took her face in his hands again. He kissed her and she tasted herself. Scully normally didn't like when guys did that, but from Mulder's lips it was decadent; she pushed her tongue into his mouth.

Mulder started walking them towards the bed, and he laid her down. Breaking the kiss, he stood and looked at her naked body. She looked back at him with hooded eyes. He made a motion with his hand in a request for her to stay right where she was, and he picked up the candle and went into the bathroom.

She heard him rummaging through his toiletry bag, most likely for a condom. What was she doing? He was her partner. Equal partners, yes, but he was the senior agent in their department of two. And she had just come against his mouth. _I should go,_ Scully thought. She didn't go.

Mulder found the condom he had put in there ages ago for a just-in-case scenario. The need for it had never come up, and the only thing his dick had touched in over a year was his own hand. His cock grew harder at the anticipation of being inside Scully, her hot and wet pussy that he had just had the pleasure of tasting.

He came back into the room and was relieved that she was still there. A part of him thought she wouldn't be. She had her arm draped over her eyes. He saw her take a deep breath and then she dropped her arm, looked at him, and propped herself up on her elbows.

Mulder unbuckled his belt, slid his jeans down his legs, and stepped out of them. He could feel her eyes on his dick, and as he put the condom on he looked at her cunt. Her legs were slightly spread; the place he wanted to be shadowed between her legs, the room still bathed in the soft candlelit glow.

He crawled on top of her, guiding his cock to the warmth of her center and slid into her in one slow thrust. The noise she made caused him to thrust again. She felt so good around his shaft—tight—a heavenly tightness that he hadn't been able to detect with just his tongue.

Scully felt herself stretch, accommodating his hard girth. She bent her knees up on either side of him, allowing him to go deeper. Her eyes rolled back; her pussy tightened around him; she thought she might pass out. It had never felt this good before.

Scully was about to moan Fox's improbable first name but "Mulder" rolled off her tongue instead. He grunted, and then lowered his body down so he could kiss her as the movements of his hips sped up. Deep, firm thrusts from his tongue, from his dick. Scully felt like her body was going to burst into flames.

Mulder heard a crash of thunder and then Scully cry out loudly, her walls clamping around his length. One more pump into her spasming cunt and he was coming, too, her name spilling from his mouth in a low, drawn-out moan.

He pushed off her so as not to crush her with his weight, and laid beside her; their harsh breaths rasping, competing with the clamor of the downpour outside. They laid like that for a while, only their forearms touching.

Scully finally spoke, "I don't think I'll be putting this in my report."

Mulder chuckled. He got up and retrieved her robe from the floor. He handed it to her as she sat up.

She had a shocked look on her face. "You want me to go?"

"Oh God, no," he said quickly, realizing what she had inferred by the gesture. "Just for you to cover up. You have goosebumps."

Scully rubbed her arms. She was cold, her temperature dropping after coming down from her climax, their sweat drying on her skin. She put the robe around her shoulders, pushing her arms through the sleeves.

"I'd like you to stay."


	5. Trust Me

He tried not to think of the way she was lying on the bed as suggestive. It wasn't any more suggestive than her disrobing in front of him, and that had been entirely innocent, hadn't it?

Maybe not.

Mulder pushed the thought back in his mind and focused on telling his new partner about his sister's abduction. It wasn't a story he was used to telling or was comfortable with sharing—not because he was ashamed of what he believed to have happened to her—it was more of an issue of trust. He could handle people mocking his beliefs and his theories, but he didn't often trust people to not use them against him. Look, the bureau had already given him a babysitter.

But he was quickly finding out that Special Agent Dana Scully was nothing like the babysitter he had expected them to stick him with. He could kind of see why they had chosen her. She was a headstrong scientist, but still green enough to be impressionable. Or so it seemed. Nothing he had impressed upon her persuaded her away from her strict logical thinking and facts-only attitude.

There had been little smirks here and there and the occasional scoffing at his outside-the-box investigative approaches, but, for the most part, Scully was very respectful and professional. He had readily forgiven her for those harmless, little transgressions nor had he taken offense—mostly because he gave it right back to her (or instigated things in the first place). She had taken his playful pestering in stride at their first meeting. He had taunted her in order to gauge her patience and tolerance, and she admirably held her ground. Mulder thought he could further test her as they worked in the field, and she remained sure-footed on that ground, much to his surprise.

There was no smirking or scoffing now. The expression on her face was one of compassion and concern. He didn't often have people look at him like that, so it was unfamiliar and he wasn't sure how to react, but it had made it easier for him to open up. Mulder also realized that he had made the decision to open up to her and tell her about Samantha before she showed up on his motel room doorstep.

Scully regarded Mulder as he spoke. The dark room, the candlelight, the sound of rain outside lent itself to his oration as a kind of ghost story, and it was, in a way. The ghost of his sister, no matter where she may be now, haunted him. It saddened her. She had watched as his eyes lit up at evidence that backed up his theories. His passion was contagious and she had been resisting it with analytics and factualities, trying to brush it aside as nothing more than the peculiarities of his character, but as she worked more alongside him she sensed that there was something deeper to it than that.

That it was as tragic as losing his sister made her heavy-hearted, and a twinge of remorse struck her. She had treated him as if he was a crackpot spouting off insane speculations, ("I'm not crazy, Scully," he had said to her.) not the Oxford-educated senior agent in this kind of exiled division of the FBI to which she was now assigned. Each little, disbelieving sigh or remark came back to her, and she admonished herself for not being more open-minded.

But her comportment was set for her long before their first meeting by years of dealing with sexism and misogyny, first in the field of medicine, then at the FBI. She had to behave the way she did in order to be heard, for the facts she discovered to be considered, for her science to be respected. Of course she went into that basement office with her guard up.

She had been lowering it little by little as they worked the case—she had even gone as far as to lower her robe in unexpected need of his reassurance. Her initial presumptions about him becoming almost foreign thoughts in her mind now. Any credence she had lent to the rumors about him that had floated around at the Academy sounded as silly to her now as a belief in Bigfoot. _Mulder probably believed in Bigfoot, though, so it didn't make the best analogy,_ Scully thought.

"Spooky Mulder" they called him, and she had thought it humorous. But did she think the reputation she had acquired as a ball-busting ice queen was funny as well? Certainly not. While she rebuked herself for teasing Mulder about his ideas, she added her blind inclination to take rumor as gospel truth to her list of faults.

His peer-given nickname now seemed anything but harmless and was just plain mean. Mulder had gone through something traumatic as a boy, and that trauma was still there—a part of him—as he used it as fuel for his cause. A cause that, as she learned more about it and about him, made her want to join him, to solve these mysteries that both plagued and excited him.

"No one would talk about it," Mulder was saying. "There were no facts to confirm, nothing to offer any hope."

At their first meeting, Mulder had challenged her by saying, "When convention and science offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?"

How much sense that statement made to Scully now with the context of his sister's abduction behind it. He needed something to put his back up against, but what do you use when there is nothing? She may not believe in Agent Mulder's fantastic plausibilities, but she believed in hope. Wasn't that, essentially, what her religious faith was?

Her next breath in felt heavy with emotion. She was feeling sympathy for Mulder, but also an intense fondness. His past was riddled with tragedy leaving him alone, detached from his family that couldn't speak of it, his beliefs isolating him from his colleagues, yet he still had an optimism. She almost couldn't fathom it. This intelligent man who had seen the darkest sides of humanity as a profiler, who chose to work in the shadows, did not seem to have a bitter bone in his body. He just plugged away at his quest, paying no mind to judgements or ridicule. She admired him for this.

He sat up and turned to look at her as he told her of how he found the X-Files just like a child would tell you what they had gotten from Santa on Christmas morning. Then something stopped him from continuing and he turned back away from her. His arm was on the bed, so she placed her hand over his.

"What?" she asked. Was that warmth flooding her chest her anxiety of what he might say next, or that he might choose to not say anymore and shut her out; or was it something else entirely, a bodily reaction to their contact? She had felt the same thing when he checked the marks on her back and when she hugged him in relief afterward. The collection of feelings she was having was confounding her just as the case was.

He explained that he thought someone inside the government was thwarting his efforts, which sounded like a conspiracist's conceit, but Scully found she was unable to write it off as such. Although, he seemed to write her off similarly with his next comment, saying she was a part of their agenda.

She hadn't really done anything to gain his trust besides do her job honestly with nothing but loyalty to the evidence, to the facts, but she hoped he could see that. "I'm not part of any agenda. You've got to trust me. I'm here just like you to solve this."

Her heart began to race when he turned and leaned in close to her in earnest, telling her that she needed to know, because of what she had seen, and what he believed to be his repressed memories of his sister's abduction. She chided herself for entertaining any thoughts of lust or desire. This stuff he was telling her was serious.

"Listen to me, Scully," he said, his tone rising, "this thing exists."

"But how do you know…" she responded weakly. He was too intense for her to have clear thoughts right now.

"The government knows about it, and I've got to know what they're protecting. Nothing else matters to me, and this is as close as I've ever gotten to it."

They shared a long look, their breathing elevated. Finally, he moved, but in her direction. Mulder reached his hand toward her and touched his thumb to her lips. She was startled by this, but made no indication that she was, then she pressed a kiss into his thumb. It was a weird thing to do, she realized, but so was his gesture. She might've been embarrassed by this strange incident for the rest of her life if he hadn't kissed her next, but he did. Mulder replaced his finger with his lips.

Scully was tentative even while desire smoldered and built inside her, and she felt a slight hesitation on his part as well. Even a chaste kiss could be deleterious to their working relationship, to her professionalism. She wanted to deepen the kiss, but her conflicting wants were causing a small panic within her. There was no tongue yet, her virtue was still intact- _oh, there it was._ Mulder's tongue pushed past her lips, hot and wet, and she met it with hers.

He moaned...or did she? She couldn't tell. Thank god she was already lying down because she was quite lightheaded. As if he knew she was struggling to keep upright, he pushed her back, his lips still moving against her, and crawled up onto the bed. She kicked the blanket off her lower half—she was too hot, the kiss was too hot, _he_ was too hot.

Mulder broke the kiss, straddled her hips, and sat back on his heels, well, mostly her thighs. She was melting with anticipation. What would he do next? What did she want him to do? He reached down to the belt of her robe and undid the knot. _Yes,_ Scully thought. _I took my robe off for you, now it's your turn. Take it off me, please god._ She wanted his hands on her naked body, kneading her soft flesh, tracing her curves.

He looked down at her. She was all wanton lust..._No, wait, not all,_ Mulder thought. He saw some nervous apprehension in her eyes. He understood. This could be a huge mistake, but he wanted it so badly. When was the last time he had such a connection with someone, such instant chemistry? Never. His past lovers couldn't hold a candle to what Dana Scully made him feel within the span of the few days he had known her.

Her fiery hair was splayed out on the pillow like a halo around her head. He grinned, amused at the metaphors he was using for her. First, it was a queen when she had thrown her robe back on and hugged him—her hair had gotten trapped in the collar and created the effect of a royal cape. She looked regal...and strong, even as she was shaking from relief and residual fear. Her coming to him for this made her strong in his eyes, not weak like she had probably thought.

He leaned back down to hover closely over her, placing one palm on her cheek. "I trust you."

Her lips parted as if she was going to say something, but she just nodded. Mulder covered Scully's lips again with his, and this time her tongue made its way into his mouth, stroking just inside his bottom lip. As they kissed, Mulder moved his hands down to her waist and pushed the front of the robe aside, running his fingertips along her ribs, then up to cup her breasts. He felt her put more force into the kiss and realized she was pushing against him, trying to sit up so she could shrug off the restrictive garment. Mulder helped her, blindly, then took it upon himself to rid her of the bra as well.

She laid back down and he kissed his way down her neck, nipping at her collarbone, making her sigh. He closed his lips over one taut nipple and sucked, and she arched into him, gasping. These sibilate sounds from her sizzled in the room in a harmonious melody with the pattering of the rain outside. Mulder wanted to hear more. "Nothing else matters to me," he had told her, but she was beginning to matter to him. Giving this woman pleasure mattered greatly to him right now, and it wasn't just because all the blood in his head had rushed down to his cock. He had had the stirrings of this at different moments since they first met.

Mulder reached down between them and rubbed her sex over her underwear. She whimpered and he smiled against her with a mouthful of her tit. After a thorough lavishing of her breasts and teasing her by fingering the now damp fabric between her legs, he got up off the bed and began to undress himself. She shivered at the loss of contact, but her whole body tingled with warmth at each glance of his bare skin as the clothes came off.

He started to get back on the bed, but then stopped. "Fuck," he said, "I don't have a condom."

"It's okay," she said, tugging at his hand. "I'm on the pill." He grinned widely at her, and she bit back her own smile.

They laid side by side, kissing for a while longer, hands roaming over one another before he entered her—some tactile get-to-know-you time after their personal and heartfelt verbal exchange. She took his cock in her hand and guided it to her entrance. Pushing their hips into each other in sync, he became fully buried inside her, their pelvises flush together. They both stilled, pausing mid-kiss to relish the sensation—the feeling of utter fullness for her and, for him, the balmy comfort of being totally enveloped by her tight heat.

Then he pressed his forehead to hers and began to slowly move in and out of her. He could feel her shallow puffs of breath between them, sweet and dewy, as her climax built. Mulder worked his arm underneath her side and pulled her closer as if it were possible. He couldn't tell where one of them ended and the other began.

"Say it again," she whispered.

He didn't need to ask what, and said, "I trust you."

Her cunt clamped down around his shaft and then rippled with delicious spasms that sent him over the edge with her. She cried out and he grunted in unison, and their bodies stayed tightly together as they eased down from their respective orgasms.

They would've remained that way for a long while, feeling sated and content in each other's arms, if the phone hadn't rung, interrupting their moment of intimacy and bliss with the reality of their ongoing investigation. But what had just happened, what they shared, was also a reality—their intense feelings for each other, developed over a short time, were all too real, and there was no going back.


	6. In The Rain And The Mud

_It all fits the profile._

That's what he had just said to her. Dana Scully almost laughed. "This fits a profile?" she asked, incredulously.

It was funny to her because she was actually believing it. The nonsense coming out of her new partner's mouth was making sense to her. After the events of the past couple days, and what had transpired in just the last hours was something out of science fiction. Or a horror movie, but a bad one, like an Ed Wood film—low-budget, weak plot, campy dialogue.

In fact, Agent Fox Mulder's next words were just that: "I think time, as we know it, stopped. And something took control over it."

Now she did laugh, huffing out a little chuckle; but not at him like he thought, prompting him to say, "You think I'm crazy."

No, she didn't, but she was afraid she might be. This whole nine minutes thing, as impossible as it sounded, was a strong argument. Scully sobered up slightly when she recalled the time at which Peggy O'Dell's watch had stopped.

Mulder looked back, seeing her expression become grim. "What?"

"Peggy O'Dell's watch stopped a couple minutes after nine. I made a note of it when I saw the body."

This excited him. Not only was his stubborn, strictly rational partner entertaining his theory, even citing evidence to support it, but the information spurred on the frantic workings of his mind. "That's the reason the kids come to the forest, because the forest controls them and summons them there. And, and, and the marks are from some kind of test that's being done on them. And, and that may be causing some kind of genetic mutation which would explain the body we dug up."

_Ed Wood wishes he had an imagination like this,_ Scully thought, and then she heard herself add to Mulder's explanation. "And the force summoned Theresa Nemman's body into the woods tonight."

"Yes, but it was Billy Miles who took her there, summoned by some alien impulse. That's it!"

This time when she laughed, Mulder joined her, smiling wide. It was incredible to see this shift in her. All they had gone through in their short time together had forced them to bond straightaway, but it had happened unbeknownst to them, albeit right under their noses.

Mulder felt a kinship with Scully even though they were polar opposites. He went from teasing her, treating her like someone sent to spy on him, to asking her to blow off steam with him on a run, to entrusting her with the story of his sister, to right now where he could spout off his theories without worrying about her shutting him down.

Watching her go down this line of reasoning with him was exhilarating. He had a strong urge to kiss her right then. She was standing there soaking wet in her oversized coat, a big toothy grin on her face as she laughed at the absurdity of it all along with her own willingness to believe in the unbelievable.

What he didn't know was that there was a bit of relief behind her laughter. It felt good to let her walls down and to be more open to ideas beyond the realm of her precious science. She found her resistance to his approaches to be exhausting—necessary but exhausting. Scully knew they had gotten to this point because of the combination of her scientific doctrine and his brilliant, although rather quixotic, mind.

The two of them seemed like an unlikely duo to strike such a balance, but they had, and fairly quickly, too. The look on his face was childlike, innocent, almost carefree. Knowing what she knew now about his past almost couldn't be reconciled with the person in front of her, smiling through a literal and figurative downpour. They were standing by two empty graves, all their hard work and evidence had been reduced to ash. At this moment, they only had his theories which she was now backing up. Whereas before it felt like it was him against her, the fantastic versus the plausible, they were now a unified force with contradicting ideologies fighting for the same truth. It was remarkable.

Mulder's impulse to kiss her only grew. His smile faded as he became thoughtful, overcome with a need to touch her. If he did give in, he risked more than just overstepping a professional line, he put in jeopardy a partnership, a trust, that he had feared he would never find in another person. But, it was that connection that made the pull toward her so strong.

He let the flashlight fall from his grasp and reached out and cupped her face, caressing her wet cheeks with his thumbs, and she dropped hers as well, her hands going straight to his forearms, her expression matching his now; she was feeling the same lure and the new gravity of the situation. Scully had fought it back at the hotel room. She had dropped her robe, hugged him, laid on his bed—all the while keeping her desire at bay because she didn't want anything to come in the way of him opening up to her. And he had—he had trusted her enough to tell her about his sister and about his hopes for the X-Files and his singular mission to find the truth.

She knew that she had been fooling herself that it was just a physical lust. There was so much more behind it than that, and that had been revealed to her this very night. Listening to his story in a candlelit hotel room, suffering the loss of their evidence in the fire, protecting that girl together, and now standing in a torrential rain atop the muddy heaps of dug up graves, holding onto one another.

It was coming down in sheets around them, but he was able to look straight into her eyes, the moonlight illuminating the darkening of her pupils. Mulder drew her in and pressed his lips against hers. She opened her mouth and he felt drops of rainwater fall on his lower lip which she licked away as she pushed her tongue inside. At first, he let his tongue lightly meet hers, softly swirling around, but soon he was plunging deep into the hot hollow of her mouth, stroking the insides of her cheeks. She had wrapped her arms around him, bringing them tighter together.

A moan escaped her throat and he swallowed it, then grunted in response. With his hands still holding her face, he pulled her back to look at her again—to make sure she wanted this. He knew her rationality would put a stop to this if it was the wrong thing. It all felt so right, though.

Scully affirmed this thought with her eyes and then with a nod. Mulder gripped one hand behind her neck and rested his forehead against hers. He could feel her breathing heavily like he was, the heat within them hitting the cold air, making the cloudy vapor of their breath rise up in a dewy mist around them.

The setting was eerie, two pillaged gravesites at their feet. Scully was about to have sex with Spooky Mulder here on this dark and stormy night. She smiled inwardly, remembering Mulder's comment from earlier: _You gotta love this place. Every day's like Halloween._ The woman she was before she walked into that basement office just days ago wouldn't recognize her. Looking back on that moment now, she realized just how profound their meeting was. She was suddenly reminded of something her sister had said to her when she joined the FBI: _You don't know how your life is going to change or how you are going to change the life of others._ With that handshake, her life had changed.

Mulder had been doing a similar earnest soul-search with himself as he stood clasped to this woman he had only recently met but felt he knew on a deeper level as if they had already spent a lifetime together. This wouldn't be the first time he had fucked in a cemetery; his mind, regrettably, drifted back to a youthful indiscretion he had had at university. Even just the kissing, the build-up, was infinitely better with Scully because she was compassionate and empathetic, not looking to exploit him or manipulate him. The women in his life up until now had always been that way with him, exacting and controlling. What he was experiencing with Scully was unlike anything he had ever felt. Trusting someone, completely and deeply, changed everything—and how quickly and how naturally she had earned that trust! There was a warmth inside him that had never been there before.

He nudged his way back down to her mouth, kissing her again with the same urgency they had had before their respective introspective moments. Her hand snuck between them, going to his crotch and rubbing the hard ridge of his erection. He pressed his hips into her, deepening her touch. Mulder had his hand on her neck because he needed to feel her skin and the rest of her was bundled up in her winter wear.

Scully could sense his frustration by the way he pawed at the collar of her coat. She removed her hand from his dick and started unbuttoning the cumbersome garment; she had buttoned _and_ zipped up the stupid thing. Grateful to her for initiating the removal of clothes, Mulder helped her, their hands meeting and fumbling halfway as he struggled with the zipper, and she with the buttons.

He let out an exasperated huff and she laughed. "Here, let me," she said.

Finally, it was off, and she kept going with the button-up shirt she had on underneath it. She wasn't about to get naked in this cemetery, but she wanted Mulder to have easier access to her bare body; she was already anticipating his hands on her. She left her t-shirt on and then undid her jeans as Mulder unbuckled his belt, having taken off his own jacket as well.

As soon as he opened the fly of his khaki pants, Scully's hand found its way inside, searching for the opening of his boxers. She wrapped her fingers around his cock when she found it, firmly stroking the length of him. Mulder groaned and approached her with equal enthusiasm, both hands skating underneath her wet t-shirt and up to cup her breasts. She arched her back, pressing her chest into his hands, then tilted her chin up to find his lips with hers.

They began kissing again with eagerness while they groped at each other. Mulder had pulled down the cups of her bra and teased her nipples, rolling them between his fingers gently, then pinching, causing her to whimper and her hand to still its movement inside his pants. He pinched again, delighting in the effect it had on her. She twitched in his arms and grinded her pelvis into him. "Oh Scully," he heaved out, a smile playing on his lips.

One of his hands drifted down, sneaking its way into her jeans. He rubbed her sex over her underwear finding her hot and wet. She began pumping her fist up and down his cock, and he pushed her panties aside to finger her. They must've been a sight, looking like horny teenagers giving each other overzealous, clumsy handjobs.

He had two fingers inside her, pushing in and out. It felt good, amazing actually, but she wanted more. "I need…"

"What do you need?" he asked in a hot breath against her neck.

"I need you inside me."

He guided her towards the headstone, slipping his hand from out of her jeans so he could scoot them and her underwear down. She felt her bare ass meet the cold granite. Some guilt with a hint of sacrilege burned inside her, sparking just for a moment—_the graves have been desecrated already, what does it matter if I get fucked up against it?_ The kinkiness of it and her hungry need for Mulder superseded any shame that tried to worm its way in.

Mulder pushed his pants down to around his knees, and he took his dick in his hand, taking a moment to look at Scully. The dark sky had a hint of the approaching dawn in it, the glittering rain pelting them, unrelenting. They were soaked to the bone, cold and wet, but none of that discomfort penetrated this bubble of passion they had temporarily built around themselves.

He stepped to her, his erect cock like a divining rod, twitching with anticipation as he neared the inviting spring of her pussy. His head pressed against her sensitive opening, and she held her breath, waiting for the sweet invasion. Mulder thrust his hips, sheathing himself inside her tight walls. They both moaned, then sought out each other's gaze—they needed to connect on all levels. Looking deep into the cool pools of her eyes, Mulder tried to convey the emotion he felt before he continued. Scully stared back at him, mirroring the intense affection she saw on his face. She bit her lip, a shy smile curving into the corners. He caressed the side of her face like he had at their first wanton contact, wiping away raindrops that dappled her flushed cheeks.

Then he moved, pulling his length out of her and pushing back in. "Yesss," she hissed. Mulder began pounding into her, watching with awe as her orgasm built, her ecstasy showing on her face, as he felt about to burst. He was ready to open up an X-File on his ability to stave off his climax until she came, and as soon as she did, he followed suit. Her cunt pulsed and throbbed around him as he spurted his release inside her, his hips jerking. Her name spilled past his lips and she pressed a kiss into him, humming in satisfaction.

They started to redress, as difficult as it was with sopping wet clothes, but they kept stealing little flirtatious glances at each other. When Scully finally caught his eye, she grinned at him. He picked up her coat which was laying in a heap in the mud and handed it to her. "Here's your enormous jacket."

Scully laughed, taking it from him and shrugging it on.

Mulder put his arm around her and they began walking towards the entrance of the cemetery. "C'mon, let's get outta here."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm gonna buy you breakfast and then we're going to pay a visit to Billy Miles."


	7. Mirrored

He found her eyes in the two-way mirror. How? How had he done that? Dana Scully returned the look knowing, without a doubt, that her partner would feel it.

This connection between them had been building, and its intensity, while it alarmed her, was thrilling. They had gotten back from Oregon yesterday, and as soon as they parted ways at the airport, Scully felt like she was waking up from a dream. Running around the woods with Mulder, entertaining his wild theories, listening to his ghost story by candlelight—she had been in a fantasy land. Her body had instantly gone cold, thinking that this bond they had shared had been imagined, concocted in her brain alongside the absurdities that he put up against her scientific logic.

She had felt this loss deeply, and admonished herself on the drive home for not only getting caught up in his flights of fancy but for inventing some kind of special partnership between them. Lust and desire had maintained a residence in the back of her mind since they had met. She had promptly put it in check, writing it off that it was just because Mulder was good-looking, but then a thousand little things happened that indicated that the draw was much more than just a basic attraction.

This morning, Scully was still questioning their unique rapport just like she had questioned Mulder's beliefs. It wasn't until his eyes burned a hole through the glass and into her soul that it hit her that it had all been real—her feelings and the depth of those feelings were true, and if he felt even a sliver of what she felt (which by the way he looked at her, piercing and exacting, just through the power of their proximity, indicated as much), then their connection was real, too.

When their eyes met, impossibly through the partition, it sparked something in Scully—it sparked what she had dismissed as fantasy into sharp reality, and she felt it in her core. Conduction, thermal energy, happening on a metaphysical level. Scully tried to put it in terms she could understand, but she knew, deep down, this was beyond the realm of science; she was experiencing a phenomenon much like what she had been assigned to debunk.

She couldn't debunk this, though, and she didn't want to.

Scully reluctantly followed the men out of the room, not wanting to lose the warmth from Mulder's gaze after hearing the chilling testimony of the hypnotized Billy Miles. All through the meeting with Blevins that followed, a low hum of nervous energy whirred inside her—that gut-punch feeling of meeting Mulder's eyes through the glass reverberating throughout her entire being. Her body felt the itch to get down to that basement office; she needed to be in his presence again—the pull was that strong.

"Agent Mulder believes we are not alone."

If they were looking for her to say something with which they could condemn him or shut down his campaign to further investigate the paranormal, they would not find that in her. At their first meeting, they had vaguely implied it but had not admitted their intentions when she questioned them. It was clear to her now that these higher-ups would be an obstacle in Mulder's search for the truth. "Agent Mulder believes we are not alone" was all she would give them, and she silently pledged to her new partner that he would not be alone in that search.

When she entered Mulder's office, she found him sitting in his chair staring at a poster with a UFO on it. "I Want To Believe," the poster lamented, and Mulder's posture and the air about him exuded the same desire. He knew she was there, probably by the sound of her heels on the floor, but maybe he knew in another way, a deeper way, that her presence was more than just physical, that her commitment to him as his partner went beyond the simple terms stated in the Bureau handbook.

"What did Blevins say?" asked Mulder, still facing away from her.

"He's not satisfied with Billy's testimony or the lack of physical evidence. I gave him the implant."

Mulder turned in his chair. "Are you going to be reassigned?" There was a hint of fearful worry in his voice.

"I don't think so, no."

He nodded, a thoughtful pout on his lips. Scully thought she saw his shoulders deflate; she didn't know if it was out of relief or disappointment—she hoped it was the former.

"What's our next step?" asked Scully.

Mulder's eyes lit up at her use of "our." He stood up, rounding the desk to stand in front of her. "We," he said, underscoring the word with his tone, "we can follow up with the on-going case with the D.A.'s office and with Billy and his family, but apart from that, it's on to the next case."

"Do you have something?"

"Oh Scully, I have my irons in so many fires."

_No shit,_ Scully thought, _stoking a fire inside of me, that's for sure._

He watched her lips part, almost sensuously, at his comment. Mulder hadn't intended to use the idiom as innuendo, but maybe he had subconsciously. He was thrilled that she was staying on as his partner. They had worked so well together. The way she made him fight to prove his theories was exhilarating. He had been so sure he would find it frustrating, but their back and forth had become a tantalizing exercise that excited him. It got him more excited about the work, and it got him excited about her.

Scully noticed that his gaze was set on her mouth, and she licked her lips nervously. After a moment of this heated silence, he looked up at her eyes. "Thank you for backing me up with the hypnosis. I know you have your doubts about it, but your support made them at least humor me. Your science background gives the X-Files some credibility, and I appreciate that."

Scully started to smile bashfully, but then the corners of her mouth turned downward. "I hope I can bring more to the table than just some credibility."

"Oh, you already have, Scully," Mulder quickly assured her. "So much more."

Her eyebrows went up, questioning but believing. His expression became firm in an attempt to convey his sincerity. They leaned toward each other with magnetized-like movements, little hesitant twitches bringing their faces closer together. Then they both gave up holding back and their lips met with purpose. Mulder's hands went to Scully's hips, lightly resting there, and Scully reached up to cup his cheeks. They kept moving in sync—mirrored gestures; they opened their mouths to each other, tongues spilling past their lips. A moan sounded in the room, echo-like, the source unclear, but probably a mix of both their lustful sighs.

They pulled apart only to remove their jackets, then their hands busied with the buttons of each other's shirts, lips meeting again as soon as they could get their hands on bare skin. Scully wobbled a little; she was on her tiptoes and rapidly becoming lightheaded. Mulder circled his arms securely around her waist, steadying her and bringing her in tighter to him. He started to shuffle back toward the desk; Scully mumbled against his mouth, breathy and unconvincing, "We shouldn't."

Mulder nodded. "It's not a good idea," he agreed at the same time reaching behind him and sweeping his arm in an arc, sending everything on the desk crashing to the floor. He spun her around, pressing her against the desk. Her hands immediately went to his belt, deftly unbuckling it and undoing the closure of his slacks.

He cupped her breasts over her bra, looking down to see if it was the same one he had seen in his candlelit motel room when she had come to him and dropped her robe. It was different—sheer, pale pink lace that gave a hint of her rosy, hardened nipples. He ran his thumbs over them, eliciting a whimper from her, then he lifted her under her arms and sat her down on top of the desk.

_Oh God, I want this._

It wasn't until Mulder responded, "Me too," that Scully realized she had verbalized that thought...or had he read her mind? At this point, she was apt to believe that he had that ability with her.

Scully shimmied her skirt up to her waist and Mulder shifted to stand in between her parted legs, running his hands up her thighs. They both cursed the existence of pantyhose in their minds, simultaneously. Then Scully, anticipating their mutual frustration, said, "Just rip them."

"Really?" Mulder breathed hotly against her neck.

"I don't fucking care," said Scully as her hand went down to stroke the bulge tenting his boxers.

"Uunph," Mulder grunted when she made contact, jerking his hips into her. He pawed frantically at the crotch of her nylons, pinching the gauzy fabric so he could tear it. When he finally did, it made a loud ripping sound and Scully gasped, following it up with a sensuous mewl that fell richly decadent on his ears. "Oh Scully," he sighed.

They both helped to push his boxers down his thighs, then with Scully holding his cock and Mulder pulling her panties aside, they guided him to her entrance. His hands went to her ass and he scooted her to the edge of the desk, thrusting into her. The quick, whetted movement pushed him, rough and deep, inside her and she cried out.

Mulder began pumping in and out, his grip on her hips becoming bruising as he built them both toward climax. Scully had leaned back, her hands behind her for support and for leverage as she rocked against him in perfect time with his thrusts. This gave Mulder the erotic view of his partner—the flushed chest, her lace-covered tits bouncing rhythmically, and her face that showed the euphoria she was feeling across her delicate features.

Looking at her like this was like looking directly at the sun; he felt his balls tighten and he squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted her to come first, but he wasn't sure he could manage it. She was all primal sexuality and passion he never would've guessed was under her professional armor, and she trusted him enough to show him it. Mulder was grateful for their partnership, their instant connection, and for the honor of seeing this side of her that he suspected very few got to see.

He felt a constriction in his chest as these profoundly emotional feelings flooded his soul as he neared a physical release. Then there was warmth on the place above his heart; he opened his eyes to see that Scully had placed her hand on his chest. They looked at each other and Scully nodded, seeming to affirm that she felt it, too.

Then her head fell back and she moaned, "Yesss, Mulderrr, yesss!"

Her walls clamped down on him and he feverishly sent the signal from his lust-filled brain to his cock that he could let go now. Mulder gritted his teeth and grunted as he came. He felt faint as her pussy continued to pulse and undulate around his length, and he leaned forward with his hands on the desk.

"Fuck, that was intense," he said before he could stop himself.

"Yeah," Scully breathed out in agreement.

He noticed her downcast eyes and sensed she was afraid to look at him now. He tipped her chin up with his finger and then placed a kiss on her forehead. He felt her body ease against him and she rested her cheek on his chest. Scully could hear the comforting thud of Mulder's heartbeat, and she smiled.


	8. 11:21

Dana Scully had spent the last hour mulling over Billy Miles' testimony under hypnosis and the hour before that she had seriously questioned her life choices. This weird subdivision of the FBI was not what she had imagined when she left teaching for fieldwork. She didn't belong down in the basement arguing in favor of facts and science on a loop with someone who claimed to have no need for such things.

Agent Fox Mulder defied explanation himself. He could steadfastly believe in some of the most out-there theories and disregard evidence based in reality, but still breakdown the mystery and develop leads that progressed the investigation. It should've infuriated her, but it didn't. He made nonsensical leaps that drove her crazy, and yet she had found herself completely caught up in all of it. There was a thrill in the challenge, in this skeptic-believer tango they had established, and so quickly, too.

Part of that thrill was him. As exasperated as she was with his methods, he intrigued her—so much that it concerned her a little. She needed to focus on the work if this new stage of her career was to be a success, not on her partner and the alluring puzzle that he embodied.

Her thoughts had, again, circled back to him as they had done repeatedly as she laid awake in bed, the idea of sleep an abstract concept. She recalled her last contact with him and it sent an unmistakable jolt of arousal through her. It had been just a look, but the sheer intensity behind it shook her to her core. Not to mention the near impossible fact that they had made eye contact through a two-way mirror.

She could see him, he couldn't see her, but he was still able to zero in on her with razor-sharp accuracy. It was surprising that the heat of their connection hadn't shattered the glass. She had felt the same kind of butterflies in her chest as she did when she experienced a first kiss. How had romantic notions become so tangled up in this situation? These feelings kept popping up as they worked the case. And then there had been that whole robe-dropping incident. The man had already seen her in her underwear for Christ's sake.

This amorous stirring inside of her was unwanted. She was not looking for romance. Why did he have to be so goddamn good-looking? He wasn't really her type, either, not that she had a type, but she didn't think he was it. She normally found his particular brand of humor cheesy, but on him it was inexplicably charming. And his fantastical tendencies annoyed the hell out of her even as they endeared him to her. Her attraction to him was a fucking X-file in and of itself.

She turned over on her side, exhaling a frustrated sigh, and tried to ignore the horniness surging through her spurred on by thoughts of her platonic co-worker. 11:21, the red digital numbers on her clock radio burned brightly in the darkness of her bedroom. This was going to be a long night.

Little did she know that across town Fox Mulder had been having a similar conversation with himself. How had this tiny red-headed scientist gotten so into his head? His life had been consumed by the X-files for such a long time that anything else crowding into his brain was jarring. That it was a newbie field agent sent to spy on him was even more concerning.

But she wasn't that, he had learned. He saw a genuine loyalty to the truth in her and couldn't believe how quickly he had come to trust her—and he didn't trust anybody—even going as far as telling her about Samantha's abduction. Before that he had been feeling that they shared moments of unspoken connection, he just brushed it aside, though; it was probably because she was cute and didn't dismiss him or his theories. Well, she didn't believe him, even called him crazy at one point, but she wasn't rude or malicious about it like a lot of people tended to be.

Then when she had shown up on his doorstep worried about mosquito bites, he noticed the last bit of his reticence fell away. Dana Scully was the real deal: smart, beautiful, hard-working, guileless. He had to stop himself from listing all of her wonderful qualities because it would be endless.

Uh oh, he was smitten and smitten people often do foolish things. And calling her late at night with feelings of lust and fondness swirling around inside him, all while fighting against a growing erection, was definitely foolish.

"Hello?"

Oh god, her voice. Was it his imagination or did it sound extremely sensual? Not just sleepy which gave him images of her in bed, but sultry, lower and heavy. It did not help the situation in his lap.

"Scully? It's me."

Oh god, his voice. He said "it's me" like it was a totally normal thing to call her at home at this late hour. At least she hoped it would become a normal thing. Her thoughts and feelings about him distressed her, but she was thrilled that he had called, and he sounded so good—trusting, and that was incredibly sexy to her, especially with what she now knew about him. It did not help the dampness between her legs.

"I haven't been able to sleep. I talked to the DA's office in Raymond County, Oregon." He decided to launch right into the information he needed to tell her, information that could've easily waited until the next morning. It was just an excuse to talk to her, he knew that; he hoped she didn't, though.

"There's no case file on Billy Miles. The paperwork we filed is gone." _It's you and me against the world_ was his subtext. "We need to talk, Scully." Nevermind that we are talking right at this very moment.

She hesitated. "Y-yes." It came out throaty and husky. She was so turned on, she didn't know what else to say.

Okay, he was not imagining it, that "yes" was dripping with arousal. He recognized it because when he repeated it, he heard it in his own prurient tone. "Yes."

There was a long pause where they came to the simultaneous conclusion to surrender to their desire. Scully snuck her hand under her panties and Mulder gripped his cock through the opening of his boxers—their synchronous hiss combined in an echo-y, electric sizzle.

"S-scully?" he croaked, pumping his fist up and down his length.

"Hmmm?" she hummed, drawing her fingers in and out of her wet pussy.

"I guess I'll-" He stopped when he thought he heard a soft whimper on the line. _Could she..? Nah._ He was trying to get off the phone with her before he made a complete jackass of himself. Also, this behavior was technically sexual harassment. "I'll, uh, let you go."

"No! I mean, um, I'm not-" Her fingers rubbed over her clit and she couldn't finish her sentence. She didn't even know what she had been planning on saying.

The heavy breathing that came after was pretty unambiguous. Mulder had watched enough porn to know what that particular type of breathing meant. The visual it put in his mind nearly made him come. He squeezed the base of his dick, he didn't want to climax uncontrollably, shouting her name or something equally mortifying.

"Scully?" he whispered harshly.

"Yesss?" she sighed. He was onto her and she knew it, but it all felt so good that she didn't care. Then his ragged breaths that came through the earpiece confirmed her suspicions that he was doing the same thing. He was touching himself while on the phone with her as she fucked herself. She was having phone sex with her new partner. This was so wrong, but it also felt so right, so natural.

"Mmmulder."

"Scullyyy."

They were both panting now, neither hiding the fact that they were pleasuring themselves. Scully's fingers moved faster on her plump bundle of nerves. Mulder hotly stroked his cock. Scully came with a strangled shriek, and Mulder promptly followed, unable to restrain his groaning.

They allowed for a moment of sated silence before they let the gravity of what had just transpired hit them fully. Then they clumsily tried to deal with it.

"Did you- did we..?" Mulder asked vaguely to avoid appearing vulgar in acknowledging it.

Scully didn't respond—she was too embarrassed.

"Scully, I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," she said, ashamed. "Let's just pretend this didn't happen." She wasn't sure how else they could go on working together.

"Okay," agreed Mulder.

Silence. They didn't want to hang up.

"Scully?"

"Yes, Mulder?"

"I don't want to pretend it didn't happen," he said softly.

"Neither do I."


	9. There Was A Light

"We need to talk, Scully."

"Y-yes," she confirmed, hesitantly. His intensity translated over the phone. She could feel it just like she could when she was in his presence. "Tomorrow."

"Now. If that's okay. I'm outside your apartment."

"What?" Scully yelped, sitting up abruptly. She held the sheet up over her chest as if he could see her. It was ironic that she was exercising modesty because right before he had called she had been entertaining lewd thoughts about him, even considered pleasuring herself while doing so. And where was that modesty when she had disrobed in front of him?

"Can I come up?" he asked like he was dropping her off after a first date and had the balls to presume such a request would be received well.

"Um, yeah." _Why not?_ she thought and then, _Who am I kidding, there are a hundred reasons why not. This is a bad idea._ "Number 35." _Oh god, Dana, what are you doing?_ He clicked off the line and Scully sat there for a moment, stunned, before scrambling out of bed.

She was wearing a lacy white camisole and silk shorts. What the hell had she been thinking wearing something so provocative to bed alone? Oh, right, she'd been thinking about her handsome partner seeing her like this and being so overcome with desire that he takes her right then and there. That had been the fantasy she was going to jack off to, anyhow.

No time for that, though, that handsome partner would be here any second. Scully threw on the nearest robe she could find, and of course, it was a thin, silky one—one that would hardly conceal her hardened nipples. She rushed toward the bathroom to look for her bulky, terry cloth robe instead, but then there was the knock at the door. He was here. _Relax,_ she told herself, _he's already seen you in your underwear._ The thought did not relax her.

Scully went to the door, took a few deep breaths to try and calm the heaving of her chest, and opened it, affecting a sleepy yet nonchalant demeanor as best she could.

"Sorry to bother you, Scully," he said in a cursory sort of way, not sounding apologetic at all.

"That's all right. Come in," Scully said, stepping aside.

Mulder looked around her living room as Scully looked at him. He was disheveled—his suit jacket crumpled, collar unbuttoned, no tie, a sexy five o'clock shadow shading his perfectly-sculpted jawline, his hair askew with a lone lock flopped adorably across his forehead. Disheveled looked damn good on him. She tightened the sash on her robe and crossed her arms in front of her, hoping to hide her nipples that were now perked up even more.

"Nice place."

"Thanks."

He shifted where he stood and ran his hand through his hair. "I, uh, I don't know why I'm here." Scully knitted her brow and tilted her head in concern. "I stayed late, at the office, doing some follow-up stuff and going over Billy's hypnosis tape. Then I found out that our reports were gone from the official record at the county, no one could tell me why. I left and drove around for a while... and I ended up here." He shrugged, and Scully thought he looked just like a lost puppy.

"I'm going to put on a pot of coffee," she said. "Stay and we can talk."

"It's late…" Mulder weakly protested, purely for the sake of being polite. He made it obvious that he wanted to stay by taking off his suit jacket and draping it over the back of a chair.

"Not really," said Scully and she saw him grin shyly before she turned and went into the kitchen.

Mulder looked around some more while Scully made the coffee. Her apartment was very homey and he felt comfortable here, just like how he had felt comfortable with her so soon after meeting her. He picked up a framed photo from her desk. It looked like a family photo. A younger Scully, perhaps in her early 20s, stood next to a man with broad shoulders dressed in a Naval uniform and a woman with dark, curly hair. He guessed they were her parents, if you combined the seriousness of the man's eyes with the kindness in the woman's, you would get Scully's piercing baby blues that challenged but reassured you at the same time. There were three other people in the picture that seemed to be around the same age as Scully, most likely siblings. They all had fair skin and varying shades of red hair. _A typical Irish family,_ Mulder thought, and a happy one, it seemed, from the look of their easy smiles.

He set the photo back down, remembering what he had told her about his own less-than-happy upbringing. She had listened to him so intently that night, the words spilling out of him because of the startling amount of trust he had in her. Maybe it was because as skeptical as she was, she had still trusted him quite readily, scoffing at his fantastic theories, but taking them seriously enough to apply her scientific methodology. She brought an integrity to the work that he needed, and he was grateful to her for that.

Mulder was a loner; he had been one since before his sister was abducted, but her disappearance made him more isolated. He kept to himself at Oxford for the most part, focusing on his studies, and continued with that tenacious, outsider mindset in his early work as a profiler. He worked well by himself. Profiling gave him that opportunity, but his strong capacity for empathy had the tendency to drain him, having to face tragedy and evil again and again. Finding the X-Files was a eureka moment, he could use his skills as a profiler as well as his passion to find answers about his sister's abduction and other similar phenomena.

The FBI had left him alone and he liked it that way, but then they decided to give him a partner. He had plenty of reasons to believe that this was a conspiracy within the government to invalidate his work. That was why they had sent him someone who was dedicated to hard science and evidentiary facts. But they had missed that unwavering integrity of hers or had stupidly ignored it. Either way, he came out the victor because she had already proven herself to be an invaluable asset to the X-Files as well as a trusted ally. That was why he had subconsciously steered his car in the direction of her home. So much progress had been made during the case in Oregon and now it was all being covered up. He was disheartened, lost—and he had instantly thought of her, suddenly craving her companionship.

Scully came back in with two mugs of freshly-brewed coffee and he put on a freshly-brewed smile for her, warmed by the sentimental thoughts he had just been having, steeped in his growing affection.

They sat together on the sofa and Mulder told her about their disappearing files and how he had gotten the runaround from the Raymond County DA's office. The work conversation and professionalism soon dissolved into a dialogue of a more personal nature as they both embraced this pleasant rapport that came so naturally to them. It had been there from the beginning, even when they were hotly debating what was plausible within the realm of science—there was a mutual respect that developed quickly and organically.

"It's a good thing you didn't have some hulky boyfriend here to kick my sorry ass for calling on you so late."

Scully chuckled. "No, no boyfriend."

"Now _that_ is an X-File," Mulder said, and she blushed.

"No time for a boyfriend," she sighed. "Too focused on my career, I suppose. At least that's why my last relationship ended."

Mulder nodded his head in commiseration. "And now you get to spend all your time with me," he said, flashing her cheesy grin.

She laughed and then fell quiet, looking up at him, eyes all hooded and shy. "I'm looking forward to it."

"You are?" he asked seriously.

"Yeah," Scully said, trying to reclaim her poise. She was about to leave it at that, but the way his sparkling hazel eyes bore into her with such earnestness, she caved and told him what had really just crossed her mind and had crossed her heart back when they had first met, "I feel like I'm on the cusp of a great adventure with you, Mulder."

And with that, Mulder melted, his insides felt all warm and gooey, and he almost outwardly shuddered as the feeling took hold of him. But, he was a man with great insecurity (that tended to happen when you lived your life not being believed by everyone with whom you came in contact) so he asked for reassurance. "You don't feel trapped? Like they stuck you down in the basement with ole Spooky Mulder?"

"Not at all," she said sincerely. "If anything, I would think you'd be the one feeling stuck with me."

His cheeks colored with guilt. "I'm sorry I did kinda give you that impression in the beginning, huh?"

"I believe you said I was sent to spy on you and at one point you mentioned my 'little report,'" she said, not letting him off the hook, but also smiling so he knew she didn't take offense.

He jokingly winced at his own words, happy that she didn't feel slighted. "Well, I don't think that anymore. I trust you, Scully, and I don't trust very easily."

"I know that, Mulder."

This exchange felt like something between two people who had known each other for longer than the short amount of time that they did. They held their gaze and the air around them took on a sudden charge to it. And it wasn't imagined by them because when Mulder placed his hand on Scully's bare foot beside his thigh, it set off a spark. Scully let out a little gasp. Mulder recoiled, startled, but then rested his hand back down, rubbing his thumb over the delicate bone of her ankle as if to soothe the shock.

"Explain that, Agent Scully," he said quietly.

"Explain static electricity?" she asked, affecting naivete, knowing full well he didn't need the definition. He was referring to the spark, not the one produced by him touching her, but the one she felt in her heart like a jolt—the glint in his eyes told her he felt it, too.

His hand traveled up her calf; he watched, entranced, as he skimmed her soft, marzipan-like skin. It took effort to tear his eyes away, but he did, looking intensely at her for permission to keep going, for confirmation that their chemistry was too powerful to ignore. "Yes, please," he answered, wanting to hear her spout scientific reason—it had already become a quality of hers that he found irresistible.

Her lips parted as her breath became thick inside her chest. She dropped her knee, the robe falling open to reveal a pale sliver of her inner thigh. "Opposite charges attract each other," she whispered. He nodded, his hand now higher up on her leg, caressing the graceful depression behind her knee. "When the charges build up," continued Scully, amazed that she was able to keep speaking, "they find a way to release, resulting in a spark."

"Ah," came a rumble from the back of his throat, like he was just learning this fact in this moment and not decades ago in middle school. His fingers traipsed the smooth expanse of her thigh as he leaned closer to her.

"Muh-" His name was cut off by a whimper. His hand felt too good on her and he was too close to her throbbing sex. Too many charges were sparking off inside of her, she could feel her hot blood pulsing through every vein.

"Do you want me to stop?"

She shook her head and bit her lip. His fingertips finally met the damp silk that covered her. Mulder could feel the coarseness of her pubic hair through the thin material and he groaned at the realization that she was not wearing underwear. Scully tilted her pelvis to deepen his feather-light touch that threatened to drive her mad. Her display of need did not go unnoticed, and he pushed her shorts to the side, prodding at the liquid warmth of her entrance.

Scully hissed and grabbed a hold of his forearm. Mulder stilled his fingers inside her, searching her eyes for uncertainty, but what he saw in those darkened royal blue pools was a plea, a plea to keep going. She voiced as much with husky supplication, "Please."

He thrust two fingers in as he pressed the pad of his thumb into her clit and a beautiful cry of pleasure ripped from her throat. She rocked her hips in concert with his movements inside her, holding a fierce stare with him where charges were almost visible in the electric air between them. He went deeper and put more pressure on her plump button of nerves; her head fell back and her panting breaths quickened.

Mulder was awestruck, unsure of how he was able to keep up the precise ministrations that his fingers were doing. It was like the blinding flash of light he had seen in the woods, except this was his buttoned-up partner coming undone underneath him, the brilliance of her passion bewitching him where he could do little else but bear witness to the profound beauty of it. Unlike his experience in Oregon, this was tangible, but still every bit a sublime mystery—one that could also become a lifetime devotion.

Right as she was drawn under the last crashing wave of her climax, Mulder covered her with his body, pressing his lips to hers to absorb the intense charge of her release. And once he started kissing her, he couldn't stop. Scully was gasping for breath, but clumsily kissing him back. The things he was doing with his tongue didn't give her any chance to come down from her orgasm; she was caught in magnetic suspension, her bloodstream humming like it was pumping electrical currents instead of blood.

She repeated her plea from before. "Please" floated out on a raspy breath. Mulder lifted off her to hastily undo his trousers; he only did as much as he needed to free his cock. Then he yanked her shorts aside again and plunged into her warm, plush depths. They cried out in unison and then moved in tandem, but their actions were jerky and frantic like this shared euphoric feeling could be ripped from them at any second. Scully had already learned how precious evidence was in her new line of work and how it could disappear without a trace. She wrapped her legs around Mulder's hips tightly, to keep the evidence of their chemistry, this hot, igniting spark with her as long as she could.

"Scully," he whispered harshly against her cheek. He thrusted his hips and felt her squeeze around his shaft. "Fuck." He wasn't sure he could stop his orgasm from happening, but he wanted to see her come again—it was otherworldly, and he just so happened to be an expert in things which were out of this world. Then the ripples of pleasure began and he let go, getting lost in the rapturous quaking of her body beneath his which sustained his climax for longer than he thought possible. Another mystery she had shown to him.

They matched moan for moan as they rolled through each swell of ecstasy until, at last, their sated bodies went limp. Mulder, breathing heavily and still draped on top of her, pushed sweaty strands of hair away from her forehead, looking at her with the same expression that had graced her face when they had met back up in the woods. "There was a light," she had said in awe. He had just seen one, too—the radiant light within her. She had bestowed it on him like she had with her trust, and he was humbled by it.


	10. Beyond the Realm of Science

Dana Scully looked around her living room as she set her keys down on the table. It felt strange to her now, different in a way she couldn't pinpoint. The events over the last week—the new assignment, the case, her partner—had all left an indelible yet undefinable impression on her. Something deep inside her had been awakened, but whatever that something was defied explanation—Scully was unable to put it in terms with which she was comfortable. Nothing that came before had challenged her quite like the X-Files had, not undergrad or med school or teaching. And personally, no one had challenged her like Agent Fox Mulder.

It was thrilling, and her life up until recently had been seriously lacking in thrills. A strong sense of purpose rallied within her. With school, medicine, and her early career at Quantico, she had always had a sense of purpose, but nothing like what roused her now. She was meant to stare into the mysteries of the universe and find answers, and down in the vast recesses of her soul where these intense feelings had been forged, she knew she was meant to do this with Mulder at her side.

Her quest might not be as personal as his, but she found herself committed to the journey, not knowing where it may take her. She had mapped out her life having a very clear vision of how it should go, but when the opportunity had come to shake all those definitive plans up, Scully had jumped. Rebellious by nature, she was rejecting the neat, little boxes she had made for herself. And now she questioned if she had wanted those things in the first place or if they were just the things she was supposed to want.

That was the strangeness she was feeling. The woman who had left this apartment to start her first day as an agent of the X-Files had thought she wanted a stable job with a ladder to climb and a glass ceiling to break. She thought she was happy in her relationship, thought that she and Ethan would get married, have kids, and grow old together.

These life goals now felt foreign to her. With this new job, there was excitement and unpredictability, and there was more to break than glass ceilings—there were conspiracies to break wide open and Mulder's theories to break down into logic and reason. Working closely with Mulder on this case had brought out feelings she had neglected and ignored, feelings that she was not happy with Ethan, that they were listlessly going through the motions of their expected coupledom. With Mulder she had come alive; with Ethan she was the walking dead. Along the way she had become too complacent with this status quo, and at the moment, she was a little pissed off at herself for falling so easily into something so boring and conventional.

An ache throbbed in the arch of her foot. How long had she been standing there contemplating her life choices? Scully eased down onto her sofa and had barely kicked one heel off when she heard the sound of keys in the lock. Disappointment surged inside of her and a different kind of ache permeated from her heart.

"Hey, babe," Ethan said, leaning down to give her a peck on the lips. "You just get in?"

"Yeah." She watched him make himself comfortable in her apartment, his jacket strewn untidily on a chair not even a foot away from the coat rack, his shoes had been toed off and left on the floor in the middle of the walkway between the coffee table and the couch. Irritation flared and she took a deep breath before standing and picking up his shoes to put them neatly by the door. Then she placed his jacket on the rack where it belonged before turning to him and questioning why he was here. "I thought you said you were working late."

"I did. I was. It _is_ late." He chuckled at her like she was being daft.

"You could've called."

Ethan furrowed his brow. "You're in a mood."

Scully scoffed and resisted a roll of the eyes. His tone was reminiscent of how high school boys used to tease her, saying she must be "on the rag" whenever she dared to stand up for herself. She pushed her desired response of "fuck you" to the back and said, "I had a long, difficult day at work, Ethan. It's not a 'mood.'"

"Oh well, in that case, let's crack some beers and relax. I had a long day, too." He loosened the tie around his neck and put his socked feet up on the coffee table.

Scully opened her mouth and then closed it. She did not want to get into an argument so she said nothing and walked past him down the hallway. He said something about the beers he expected her to retrieve from the fridge, but she ignored it, closing her bedroom door behind her.

Undressing, she played the argument she didn't want to have in her head. They were so predictable, she knew exactly how it would go. There would be the initial back and forth where he would make seemingly innocent remarks that would lay the foundation of his main contention: that his issues, wants, and needs were more important than hers. Ethan was skilled at debate and not in the fun, easy way she had found that to be with Mulder. Not that arguing with Mulder's theories was actually easy, but she never felt slighted at their difference of opinion nor did Mulder use underhanded comments or twist her words to make his points. Ethan would often get manipulative whenever he was slightly challenged, and sometimes he would become downright petty and mean. Maybe tonight it wouldn't have devolved into that, but at the moment she had no patience for even the mildest of bickering. And she really hoped he wouldn't bring up the subject of their canceled vacation again. She had told him they would reschedule it once she got back from Oregon, but when she did, she found she no longer had the desire to go on a romantic getaway with him.

She slipped into her pajamas, the smooth silk feeling cool and soothing against her skin. Ethan knocked lightly before opening the door and coming into the room with two bottles of beer, the necks clasped between his fingers. The semi-polite gesture made her soften and she returned his unassuming smile as she took the proffered beer from him. "How about one of my famous neck rubs?" he suggested in an attempt to solidify the truce he was obviously trying to make.

Scully sat on the bench at the end of her bed and he climbed up behind her. She now held both their beers and she took a long pull from one before settling between his legs. He was really good at giving massages and she was so tense right now. Ethan started at the base of her neck and slowly worked outward and down, stopping to focus on knots when he felt them. One particularly ornery knot near her right shoulder blade required more attention and she could feel his frustration start to build at not being able to work it out. She let out an undetectable sigh and handed him his beer over her shoulder. "Thanks," she murmured, signaling to him that he could end his efforts. They finished their beers and got ready for bed in silence. It seemed to her that Ethan took this as a comfortable silence, but to Scully it was not—it was uncomfortable and stifling. Her thoughts from before kept turning over in her head.

When she pictured her future, even just months ahead of her, there was no Ethan. There was, however, her new partner. Mulder had somehow crept into her soul and set up camp. She was already making space for him and doing so willingly—enthusiastically. This had happened easily and rather quickly. They had sparred at their first meeting, but their rapport was amiable and respectful and had developed that way naturally. That connection was only strengthened as they worked the case. Then she had turned to him when she feared she had the marks and he reciprocated that display of trust by confiding in her about his sister and his goals for the X-Files. She felt honored that he trusted her that way and wondered if he felt the same while simultaneously hoping that he didn't think she was silly for running to him and stripping down over a couple of mosquito bites. Mulder hadn't made her feel embarrassed about it, quite the contrary, in fact—he had been comforting and reassuring. And maybe a little bit flirtatious? Or perhaps that was her hoping again.

Scully got into bed next to her boyfriend, not the man who had been occupying most of her thoughts tonight. Her thoughts regarding Ethan had not been positive lately and her feelings for him were tepid at best. The cooling of their relationship had started a while ago, her career change and introduction to Fox Mulder simply shined a light on it. A smile played on her lips as an image crossed her mind of the two of them in the rainy Oregon forest, the beams of their flashlights bouncing, flirting, occasionally kissing in the darkness. This memory might be spooky to some, but Scully recalled it with a certain romanticism, and a tingly warmth flooded her chest.

The feeling vanished when Ethan cuddled up behind her and she shivered in its absence. "Let me warm you up," he whispered, thinking she was cold, and Scully stiffened. He started kissing her and touching her, and to her dismay, her body responded. It was a natural, biological response, she reasoned, it had nothing to do with prurient thoughts about her partner that had strayed into inappropriate territory more times than she cared to admit.

The kissing turned to sex and it was as mechanical as it had been for months. Her lack of passion did not go unnoticed and they both reached reluctant climaxes with an underlying sadness. She knew this was their last time and she suspected Ethan knew that as well. They didn't say anything afterward. Ethan pushed the hair on her cheek back and looked deep into her eyes. He must've seen it, the end of them—realization was etched onto his face; he nodded solemnly and slid off of her, putting considerable space between them.

Not even an hour later he was curled up to her backside with an arm draped over her as he slept soundly, probably out of habit. His presence was heavy to her, and that along with her restless mind made sleep difficult to come by. The bright moon shone through the blinds striping her in dark and light, like bars on a jail cell. In the morning she would break free. Her relationship with Ethan had come to an end. The phone rang and she answered it. Her new beginning was on the line.

Mulder.

Her heart raced. She kept her responses vague. Ethan stirred behind her, asking if it was anyone important. "Just work," she said, wanting an innocuous answer to lull him back to sleep.

Scully got up very early, much earlier than usual. She showered and dressed, ready to make her escape as soon as she ended it with Ethan. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she gently nudged him awake. "Ethan." He blinked his eyes open. "Ethan, we need to talk."

He sat up, shaking his head. "No, we don't." She looked at him quizzically. "I know it's over," he said, avoiding her gaze.

"I'm sorry," Scully said, softly.

"Me too." She stood and hesitated, shifting her feet. He released them from the awkwardness. "I'll, uh, leave my key and lock the door behind me."

Scully nodded. "Take care, Ethan."

"Yeah." He ran his hand through his sleep-mussed hair and then finally made eye contact with her. "Yeah, Dana, you too."

Bittersweet—light on the bitter, heavy on the sweet. They had been together for almost a year so there were definitely sad feelings, but the relief she felt was incredible. Nothing was holding her back now, not even herself; she was free to go down this new path and see where it might take her. Her future was a mystery, the path before her drenched in blackness, but knowing Mulder would be there to walk alongside her, flashlight in hand, made her feel more confident about her choices.

The basement office was dark but not empty when she arrived almost two hours before her scheduled time. Gray light came through the lone window, reflecting a similar clouded expression on the face of Fox Mulder.

He looked at her and then at his watch. "I know I'm early," she said. "Is it… is it okay that I'm early?"

"Yeah, Scully, of course." He watched her set her briefcase down and hang up her coat. Scooting back in his chair, he opened one of the desk drawers. "I cleared out this drawer for you."

"Oh." She patted the pockets of her blazer as if to find something to put in it. "Uh, thank you."

"Sorry if it was late when I called last night," he said, standing and coming around the desk.

"No, it was fine."

Mulder nodded, staring at her for a long beat before going to the back corner of the office. Once he was out of her view he called back out to her, "I thought maybe your boyfriend would mind or something."

That caught her off guard, but she was able to compose her face by the time he came back carrying a chair for her.

"Thank you," she said, gesturing at the chair. "Uh, I... uh, I don't have a boyfriend." His brow furrowed. "Did you..?"

He gave her a sheepish look. "I mean, it should come as no surprise that I'm paranoid, right?"

Maybe she should've been bothered by the fact that he had done some background digging on her, but she wasn't. She regarded him thoughtfully, noticing a tinge of pink on the apple of his cheeks. "Well, it's a new development, the no boyfriend thing. As of this morning, in fact." She could feel her own cheeks coloring now.

Mulder's eyes widened. "It's because I called, isn't it?"

Scully huffed out a laugh. "No, it was a long time coming."

"Probably for the best," he said, resting back on the edge of the desk. "It's hard to have a life working this detail. I certainly don't have one."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" she joked.

"Guess not," he said, grinning at her.

The air kept changing in the room as they dissipated the awkwardness with their lighthearted banter, but the charged tension would return in the spaces and pauses. They were still in the 'getting to know one another' phase although their interactions prior well surpassed such banalities.

They moved at the same time, Scully taking a step toward the chair and Mulder standing away from the desk. He stepped on her toe causing her to fall into him, and then he steadied them both with his hands on her waist. "Shit, sorry," he said.

Scully gripped his forearms, his bare forearms—he had the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up. "It's okay. I'm fine."

"You sure?" he asked, leaning back a little to see her face. She nodded and seemed to get lost in his eyes. He noticed this because he found himself lost in hers. "I'm not used to sharing my- uh, the office," stumbled Mulder, but he quickly added, "I'm glad you're here, though."

"Really?" It came out in a self-conscious squeak.

"Yeah, Scully, I am," he said, his voice breathy and low.

If the air felt charged before, it was a full-on electrical storm now. Mulder could swear he saw cracks of white lightning in her midnight blue irises. Neither of them said anything about the way they held each other nor did they make any move to break the contact. He brushed a lock of hair back and tucked it behind her ear.

He did start to shift away from her as he felt the evidence of his arousal harden between his legs, but she didn't let him get far, stretching up on her tiptoes to place a chaste kiss on his lips. Scully gasped against his mouth, shocked at her own audacity but also at how warm and soft and wonderful his lips felt on hers. The thought to pull back and apologize profusely had barely entered her mind when his grip on her waist tightened and he kissed her back.

Passion took over for both of them from there. Exes and sneaky background checks and awkward pauses were instantly forgotten. _Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?_ No, she didn't, but she believed in whatever this was, this chemistry, this connection—it was irrefutable, undeniable. There were, in fact, answers beyond the realm of science, she was in that realm now, inside the hottest, most passionate kiss she had ever had.

He couldn't believe he was kissing her, that she had kissed him! The urge to feel her lips under his, to taste her, to touch her without the guise of workplace professionalism had plagued him countless times since the moment when he had first shaken her hand—when she was anxious over turbulence on the plane to Oregon, when he caught her nerding out in her room over the evidence but she tried to play it cool, when they lost nine minutes, when she dropped her robe to have him look at some harmless mosquito bites (especially then), when he confided in her about Samantha, when they stood laughing and howling in the rain and the mud, and every time she looked at him like he was crazy but stayed by his side anyway, pushing him to prove his theories.

Mulder believed in a lot of things, but his own luck was not one of them. He had never been lucky in love, and whatever was happening here with this beautiful, little, red-headed scientist felt so far beyond luck—it was kismet, fate, and destiny all rolled into one—luck with an out-of-this-world spin on it. "Scully," he moaned with her bottom lip trapped between his teeth. He kissed down her neck. "Oh my god, Mulder," she breathed out, her fingers sliding through the soft down of his hair. All coherent thought evaporated along with the heat coming off their skin. That small, lonely, rectangular window would be fogged up in no time.

This was wrong, this was misconduct, she could be fired for this, but Dana Scully was a rebellious rule-follower, meaning that she would skirt law and order only with very good reason, and following her heart was a good and sound reason as any—maybe the most fundamental reason of all. She rarely allowed herself to do it, that was how she had mapped out that boring life which she had only left behind an hour ago; that had been her brain choosing the safe route. She didn't want safe anymore. She wanted debates over lost time in the pouring rain and late-night talks in crappy motel rooms. She wanted this—the two of them acting on their mutual lust and respect.

Scully had gotten so caught up in these grand, sweeping sentiments that she missed Mulder unbuttoning her blouse, but she was brought back to blissful reality when his mouth closed over her lace-covered nipple, and she hissed loudly, "Fuck!" The sound bounced off the cement surfaces of the basement office, echoing as if the walls were chanting and cheering them on. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

She snuck her hand down between him and palmed his erection. She could feel how hot and hard he was through the layers of fabric. His hips bucked as she scratched her nails across his impressive bulge. This foreplay was intense, but what they hadn't realized was that almost every minute of their time together from their first meeting until now had been some sort of foreplay, mental and soulful as well as physical. They were both more than ready to become partners on this level, to express their trust in each other through touch. Scully's sex was dripping wet and Mulder felt as though his dick would rip right through the wool-blend material of his Armani slacks like the goddamn Hulk.

They hastily removed just enough clothing so they weren't restricted, both single-minded with their goal of having Mulder's cock deep inside Scully. He looped his arm under her knee and pressed her ass against the desk as she lined up his length to her entrance. Teamwork. Mulder made sure their eyes were locked as he pushed himself through her slick, warm folds. It grounded her—she had one unsteady, heeled foot on the floor and her fucking mind was in outer space—she needed that connection and he knew it, he needed it, too.

He pounded into her, spurred on by her breathy encouragements. It was mostly "yeses" and her lord's name in vain, but when she told him "you feel so good inside me" he nearly lost it. Mulder gripped her hard behind the neck and crashed their mouths together, teeth clashing, tongues wet and sliding sloppily around each other.

Sex had never been this good before, not with Ethan, not with anyone. Her analytical mind had trouble fathoming this amount of pleasure. Just add it to the growing list of implausible phenomena she wouldn't be able to explain but would experience for herself. "Oh god." Her head fell to his shoulder. "I'm gonna come, oh god, yes, Mulder!"

This raspy whispered panting drove him wild. Mulder had developed a certain fondness for her voice already. He liked hearing her spout off scientific lingo and medical jargon even if it was intended to prove him wrong. But, this—throaty, sultry sex talk in the throes of passion—made his balls seize up and his dick harder than it had ever been before. He tried his damnedest to hold off his climax until she was able to first, but one more sentence like that last one would surely send him over the edge.

That unbelievable luck of his continued because Scully had become so consumed with her building orgasm that she could no longer complete sentences, she could barely form words. "Muh-"

He felt her cunt tighten around him and a gush of warm fluid. Holy shit. He had never experienced a woman coming so fiercely before, feeling every ripple of pleasure coursing through her. It triggered his own intense release and he came inside her, his hips spasming uncontrollably, a primal grunt ripping from his throat.

Mulder held her closely to him as they came down from their shared high, heavy breaths eventually evened out, but he still didn't want to let her go. He did, though, reluctantly easing off her. Before pulling his pants up, he reached behind her, grabbed a box of tissues, and handed it to her. Then they began redressing in silence, but the shy glances between them served as a form of communication, muted messages to each other that neither of them regretted what had just happened. They were already well-versed in this unspoken eye language they had developed, fluent in loaded looks and candid gazing.

"I guess we should get to work," Scully said, the smirk on her lips was the only thing that gave away that they had just engaged in a torrid sex act in the basement of a federal building. Agent Scully was back and neatly put together in her power suit, not a single red hair out of place.

Mulder admired her natural grace. He didn't need a mirror to know that he wasn't quite as composed as she was. His clothes were rumpled, his cheeks still felt hot, and he couldn't wipe the dopey smile off of his face—he looked how he felt, smitten. "I mean it, Scully. I'm really glad you're here."


End file.
